


Heart of Steel

by Lady_Ganesh



Category: Hellraiser (Movies)
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:27:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27143119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ganesh/pseuds/Lady_Ganesh
Summary: Kirsty lives, and fights on.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 11
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Heart of Steel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [d0gs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/d0gs/gifts).



> There are some Kirsty/Pinhead undercurrents here, but they're on the subtle side.

The box was hers, always hers. She'd known it since she'd snatched it way from her uncle's hand and started running. 

She'd known, too, that she had to get rid of the thing. That she'd only realized in the hospital.

It had been thirty years. Thirty years of getting rid of it, finding it, trying to destroy it only to find it again. The cycle repeated, over and over and over again. Every time it seemed to get worse. More violence. More death. _Him_ insisting, over and over again, that she belonged to them.

Kirsty Cotton didn't belong to anyone.

She got her Ph.D in Early Civilizations, only to realize that wouldn't help her understand the Cenobites either. She found a quiet university in Europe to teach at, at least, and spent her sabbaticals on research. When carbon dating got hot, she sent a sliver of the damn thing to get analyzed, and found out that the box was a lot newer than she'd thought it was—maybe a few hundred years, recently enough that they couldn't narrow it any further down. 

That time, she'd tried putting it in a hydraulic press; she'd told the guy in the Engineering department that it had been a gift from an ex. That hadn't worked either, of course. Nothing she ever tried worked.

Her best guess was that the box was from the 1600s or 1700s, but whatever it called was both older and newer than that; pins dating back to the Industrial Revolution, the leatherwork so modern it had come from Kirsty's own era. For a dozen or so years, she'd thought _they_ were time travelers, but she'd been wrong. It was strange to think they were older than _he_ was.

Her working theory was that they were scavengers, taking whatever seemed right from the eras as they passed through them. The puzzle box was likely just the most recent way to call them. Maybe they'd used sacrifices, or natural materials that would decompose. Or perhaps, once they'd been called enough times, the vessel they used would disintegrate. That was a theory Kirsty wasn't wiling to put to the test. Too many idiots activated the puzzle box on their own; she didn't need, or want, to encourage that.

She'd put it in a safe deposit box in the early nineties and a jewel thief had taken it on his way out of the bank. Nothing was strong enough, and when she kept it in her house she felt the pull, every time. Once, the metalworker she'd been dating had found it. That had ended badly, too.

Kirsty supposed she'd gotten jaded. She had no parents to lean on; she'd lost too many friends and lovers to the Cenobites. People came and went, and the Cenobites lingered on, choosing their victims with care, always watching for her, always waiting.

Sometimes she thought it would be better to give in. Maybe she would have, years before, if they hadn't taken Uncle Frank and Julia first. Funny, wasn't it? Extradimensional horrors were one thing, but who wanted to spend eternity with their horrible stepmother and even more horrible uncle?

It was, sometimes, a comfort knowing that _they_ had taken Julia and Frank. Though she knew it was one of the reasons they'd kept their hold on Kirsty. A better woman, a stronger woman, would have gotten over it by now. A better woman might even have mustered some pity.

Kirsty had no pity for either of them.

She had learned a lot of things over the years. Some of them she wasn't so proud of. But some she was. The languages she'd learned. The work she'd done with her students, and the careers they'd gone on to have.

The way she had learned to wield _their_ tools...she had more mixed feelings about that.

But she'd learned how necessary it was that _someone_ learn it. 

She realized that seeking knowledge had a pull of its own, the same kind of pull that had drawn Uncle Frank to the far ends of the earth decades before. She sought to quench the fire, where he had wanted to stoke it, but they were both drawn to the flames. They were both selfish desires, at their core. He had wanted pleasure, she wanted vengeance. That the world might be a better place when she was done consoled her, but she knew in her heart it wasn't really what drove her forward.

What drove her forward was a monster wearing her father's face. Was her father's voice, calling to her.

Kirsty told herself, over and over again, that she didn't have to be a good person. That wasn't what the world had called her to be.

The world had called her to be _effective._

She'd hardened herself, year after year. Made herself tougher, harder to break. 

She might be compromised. She might be covered in blood. She might be exhausted.

But she wouldn't break. She wouldn't let _them_ take everything. She might have nothing to lose any longer but herself, but her self was still there. 

And she was ready to fight. Until the end, if she had to.

Would it be all for nothing, if she fell to them? 

She had to believe the struggle was worth it. That every year she stayed free of them, every time she deprived them of a victim, it meant something. There was little enough she had to cling to.

Sometimes she had nightmares about the Cenobites, and sometimes about her parents. Both of those were better than when she had the _good_ dreams. Sometimes she heard _his_ voice, felt sharp iron dragging over her skin. Sometimes she wanted to say _yes,_ grab the box—it would come to her hand if she'd called it, in the dreams she always knew it would, felt the surface of the wood against her skin, as everything slid into place. Sometimes she woke up, drenched in sweat, and thought, _he's right._

They had her, somewhere inside her, somewhere deep. But they didn't have all of her, and they never would.

She went back to the States every spring to see her mother.

She wasn't really in the grave. If there was one thing Kirsty had learned over the years, it was that her spirit was elsewhere. But when she went to the cemetery she felt closer to her, and closer to the good memories. Of Dad holding her hand and telling her everything would be okay. Of Mom pushing her on the swings in their backyard, higher and higher, until it felt like her feet were ready to touch the sky. Having the spring flowers and leaves coming out reminded her that life continued.

Dad had always told her she could do whatever she put her mind to, but Mom had been the one to make her believe it. Mom was who she thought of when she thought she might weaken. Mom was who gave her the strength to get up and try again, when the box found another victim and she felt the pull of the Cenobites. Mom reminded her that there were people out there worth fighting for.

Sometimes, it even reminded her that she could fight for herself, for her own soul.

One day, the battle would be the last one, whoever won. There would be darkness and rot. But the spring reminded her that even the rot gave way to life again.

The Cenobites would push and fight and destroy, and wrap themselves in leather and iron and industrial rot. They would take, and they would corrupt. But no corruption lasted forever. No rot remained stagnant. The lotus would grow from the mud, or the cherry tree from rotted fruit. Kirsty might fall—and if she didn't, age would overtake her sooner or later—but there was more than death. There was more than pain. The green would sprout and the sun would shine once more. They couldn't stop that, any more than Kirsty herself could destroy the puzzle box. Nothing could stop it. The balance would right itself, sooner or later. 

She didn't believe in God any more. But she knew, in her heart, that as potent as the death force she'd battled was, the life force was there beside it, always. Always continuing, never giving up.

 _One day,_ Kirsty thought to herself, _we will be more than death. We will win, and there will be nothing you can do to stop us._


End file.
